Dynamic Digest: Week of 8/29

Welcome to the Dynamic Digest, a weekly recap of the latest news happening in our industry. Want the pulse of what’s going on in enterprise software and analytics, performance management, cloud computing, data, and other like topics? We got you covered!

This week in the world of technology, a rocket explosion destroys a critical satellite, the FBI investigates the hacks on election databases,VMware launches a cloud software bundle, and Amazon’s IoT button arrives debuts in the UK.

Rocket Explosion Leaves Facebook’s Internet Initiative Grounded – The Wall Street Journal, September 1

Falcon 9, the SpaceX rocket that exploded during a prelaunch test, took with it a critical satellite that would have brought internet connectivity to a few hundred thousand people in the rural area of Sub-Saharan Africa. The satellite belonged to Facebook’s Internet.org project to bring connectivity to unconnected parts of the world and was meant to be a key milestone for the project. Facebook partnered with French satellite operator Eutelsat Communications SA to develop the satellite, which is estimated to cost $200 million and two years to design and build. If the launch had been successful, the satellite would have reached more than a dozen countries. Mark Zuckerberg has since expressed his disappointment in the launch failure by the aerospace company founded by Elon Musk.

 Key takeaway: The explosion created major setbacks for Mark Zuckerberg and Internet.org’s ambition of bringing connectivity to the rural places of the world. However, Facebook has shown so much commitment to this initiative of global connectivity that it’s hard to imagine that a destroyed satellite will halt the project. It may take another two years and $200 million, but it definitely won’t stop Facebook from working towards its mission.

Officials: Hackers breach election systems in Illinois, Arizona – CNN, August 30

The FBI is now investigating the hacks that targeted the election databases in the states of Arizona and Illinois. For those of you who have been out of the loop, the election system in Arizona was breached earlier in May, and the same happened to Illinois in late June. In both incidents, the voter registration systems had to be taken offline for a number of days after the FBI first discovered the attacks. The FBI assessed that up to 200,000 voter records had been compromised in Illinois. These records contain names, addresses, sex, birthdays, and, in some cases, even the last four digits of a voter’s social security number. In Arizona, officials reported that no data has been compromised. While the investigation is still ongoing, officials assert that this will not affect the upcoming election. The hackers are believed to be based overseas, possibly in Russia.  

Key takeaway: In many cases of data breach, the depth of impact is hardly ever evident right away. It isn’t until some months or even years later until the data sets are dumped on the web to be exposed to a wide range of malicious use. Although the election system hacks won’t affect or alter the upcoming election, the Board of Elections should really consider some of the security advice given by the federal government to better safeguard voters’ data.

VMware launches Cloud Foundation software bundle, coming to IBM first – VentureBeat, August 29

VMware is making it easier for companies to adopt the cloud with its launch of Cloud Foundation, a software bundle that combines existing VMware software such as vSphere, Virtual SAN, NSX, and SDDC Manager. The host of solutions can be used to manage server, storage, and networking resources across various public cloud deployments, including in the AWS, Azure, and IBM clouds. The traditionally on-premises softwares were previously only able to integrate with VMware’s own public cloud, vCloud Air. With Cloud Foundation, customers looking to move more of their workloads to the cloud can do so while using tools that they are already familiar with. Cloud Foundation will be available later this quarter and will initially roll out to the IBM cloud first.

Key takeaway: VMware has the right idea here when it comes to driving cloud adoption. Making on-premises software available for use in public clouds helps make the transition from private cloud or on-premises to a public cloud an easier one for customers. While VMware’s vCloud Air has not been as successful as its competitors in the public cloud space, Cloud Foundation can potentially help recapture some of that market share.

Other Top Tech Stories:

• Amazon Dash’s Push-Button Device Arrives in the UK – Fortune, August 31
• Dropbox employee’s password reuse led to theft of 60M+ user credentials – TechCrunch, August 30
• Box acquires team behind data analytics startup Wagon, service shutting down soon – VentureBeat, August 31

We hope you enjoyed this week’s Dynamic Digest weekly roundup! Have a suggestion or preferred topic you would like to see next week? Tweet at us or leave a comment!